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Freud wrote extensively about men's feelings of hate and fear toward other men, but had little understanding of men's hate and fear toward women. The present author, having previously (Goldwater, 1990) begun to look at men's hate toward women, now turns to men's fear of women. In order to make this even more painful and difficult subject bearable, to himself and to others, he utilizes humor and other avoidant techniques, so readers may choose for themselves just how seriously they wish to contemplate the issue.
In summary, men suffer from two powerful, but largely unconscious fears with respect to women. The first, an ancient one, stems from the ability of women to bring new life into the world, and the perception that they are able to control men's sexuality for that and other purposes. The second, a product of modern society, is that in the world of the future, men will no longer be necessary—a thought which gives men a strong impetus to violence.
The story of Oedipus is retold, replacing Freud's feminophilic attitude with a feminophobic one in order to demonstrate the need for psychoanalysts to consider both perspectives in their work. Finally, the author acknowledges his failure to come up with nontrivial solutions either to men's short-term dilemmas over trusting women, or to the long-term issue of the place of men in a woman's world.